The Puffington Post

Your Favorite Side Chick | Edition 19 | May 9, 2016

The Puffington Post

Your Favorite Side Chick | Edition 19 | May 9, 2016

CONSISTENCY IS KEY

Merriam-Webster defines consistency as "steadfast adherence to the same principles," or "the reason Taylor snoozes her alarm in eight-minute intervals from the hours of 6 to 7:30AM every morning." It is habit. And as much as I trick myself into believing the night before that tomorrow morning is the morning I become a morning person, who are we kidding, really?

Everyone has their habits; things that they do consistently. Americans consistently shit on the Kardashians and then follow their every move. Donald Trump is consistently racist. Stoner Joe consistently orders Jalapeño Cheetos every Sunday at 8PM. And goPuff consistently delivers perfectly packaged orders in 30 minutes or less all day and night long for a mere delivery fee of $1.95 while providing a friendly and entertaining experience from beginning to end. Except when we don’t.

We’re a laidback company but our work ethic is not. If we have every tool and every talent we need to provide customers with what we promise them, why should orders still be late at 3:30PM on a Wednesday? That’s right – they shouldn’t.

Consistency is knowing that you are going to get. It's being a newbie and getting a newbie pack. It's ordering on 4/20 and getting a 4/20 pack. It's searching for Half Baked and finding it not sold out. It's ordering at 10:00 and hearing a knock on the door at 10:30. It's what is expected every. single. time. You wouldn't call a place named Luigi's and expect a guy named Ming Li to answer and ask which kind of dumpling you want, right? Unless you would. The Food Network said that fusion restaurants are really trendy right now.

Things will not always be perfect. We may not always be able to control what's in stock but we can control our attitude. Where we may fall short in Supply Chain or Operations or Marketing, we can make up for in customer service. A customer can't expect their order to arrive in 30 minutes in a blizzard, but they can expect to pick up the phone to hear one of our friendly, problem-solving voices on the other end.

The service we provide is better and bolder and badder than our biggest competitor, Amazon Prime. We are better and bolder and badder than the schmucks that work at Amazon Prime. Let's start acting like it.

PUFF NATION

Here’s the key to management: avoid duplication and replication. A "silo" is an incubated place, and somewhere we do not want to operate. With now eight cities on both coasts and in-between, and new ones opening every month, we must leverage our knowledge by communicating what works and what doesn't work to be a stronger, more wholesome company.

Every week managers from our different cities will be sharing their victories, failures, quirks and updates. One city's mistakes is the next city's solution, and our collective opportunity to beat the learning curve (or just have a good laugh).

DC Regional Darren on goBoozin:

This weekend DC launched beer & alcohol (the first city with liquor delivery) and already has had tons of orders. I delivered two myself, and because I hadn't done it before, I didn't realize how long it took to save the ID picture. So I'm standing there with the customer waiting, and I say "nice weather we're having," while it's literally pouring out. Pro Tip:you always have to ID, so come prepared with talking points.

NYC Regional Enzo on Driver Lounging (in the good way):

We recently redesigned the driver (biker) lounge in New York. It's important to set up a friendly, cozy ambiance so the drivers feel included and actually a part of the goPuff family - this is something unique about our company culture. This makes them want to come to work, and love it, rather than just for the money. Creating the right environment makes drivers more responsible for themselves and by proxy, for goPuff. Pro Tip:make driver satisfaction a priority. They're the face of the company!

Austin Regional Disel on Locals Only:

We added local products - like ice creams and organic sodas - and they've been selling like crazy. Every city should add local products. Pro Tip:research popular local products in your city and make our service unlike every other by providing customers with their favorite niche items.

DC Regional Darren on goBoozin:

This weekend DC launched beer & alcohol (the first city with liquor delivery) and already has had tons of orders. I delivered two myself, and because I hadn't done it before, I didn't realize how long it took to save the ID picture. So I'm standing there with the customer waiting, and I say "nice weather we're having," while it's literally pouring out. Pro Tip:you always have to ID, so come prepared with talking points.

NYC Regional Enzo on Driver Lounging (in the good way):

We recently redesigned the driver (biker) lounge in New York. It's important to set up a friendly, cozy ambiance so the drivers feel included and actually a part of the goPuff family - this is something unique about our company culture. This makes them want to come to work, and love it, rather than just for the money. Creating the right environment makes drivers more responsible for themselves and by proxy, for goPuff. Pro Tip:make driver satisfaction a priority. They're the face of the company!

Austin Regional Disel on Locals Only:

We added local products - like ice creams and organic sodas - and they've been selling like crazy. Every city should add local products. Pro Tip:research popular local products in your city and make our service unlike every other by providing customers with their favorite niche items.

TRENDING

With alcohol in DC and very soon in every other city, we have to be beyooond careful. Cover your tracks, dig them up, and then cover them again. We’re constantly getting test orders and don’t even know it. That means every alcohol order has to be IDed and regular orders must go off without a hitch. Details, details, details, people.

“Praise in public, criticize in private.” – Yakir

Business Management 101. You want your coworkers and drivers not only to respect you, but to have a relationship with you. Let someone know when they’re killing it, and when they aren’t, let them know behind a closed door.

Denver Regional Ahmed on "Nutty" Customers:

Denver is doing great, we opened only three months ago and we are already turning 40 orders/day. Of course, without any surprise, our customers are all regular smokers, weird nerds and sketchy people. Around 2:30AM, around a month ago, I was sleepy and running deliveries alone for the last leg of my shift. I received an order from a regular Puffer, a normal guy who orders munchies. I run the delivery, make it in 17 minutes, call him like three times but he doesn't answer the phone. So I run up the stairs and go to his door and knock. I didn't realize that actually, I was gonna hate myself for about a month. That guy opened the door, all sleepy with a weird robe untied, and of course everything was hanging out wide open, no boxers, NOTHING. The guy was obviously sleeping in his living room and didn't care that by opening the door in that outfit, I was gonna be mentally raped. So I just gave him the bag, and ran away without asking him to sign or if he was satisfied by our service, because as you can tell, it would've been really weird. Endri, don't lecture me because I didn't make him sign...you can understand why.

Pro Tip:prepare for the weird.

Phoenix Regional Adam on Manpower Management:

This War of goPuff aggression seems to be going as well as thought possible. We are closing in on nearly 200 newbie recruits with us now, and morale among them seems to be high. I have recently promoted a good man; Johnny Allegro into my command group Op-M, and he seems to be from good stock as he has performed his duties perfectly thus far. In bigger cities you should take a ton of time to go over a bunch of different driver & manager candidates before choosing any. But in a new city like mine you can't take that time until you have a solid base, and you kind of need anyone. Late orders are a non-option. We are all working day, and night fighting off the well entrenched GrubHub, Postmates, and Doordash. Their slow pace, and poor customer service seems to be the key to their undoing. We will not stop until it is fiscally irresponsible for them to remain in this fight.

Pro Tip:in a new city, hire first and vet after (but please use common sense).

Seattle Regional Matt on Why OCD is a Good Thing:

Seattle just launched last week, and getting to be one of the people to launch a new city, on a new coast no less, is really cool and exciting. There's something therapeutic and exhausting but also therapeutic about organizing 20 racks of products and setting up the environment that you know will lead to success. It takes time and extra effort, but keeping the warehouse clean and organized and making sure everything has its place ultimately makes operations function better and lowers delivery time, because you're not scrambling to find a product or open a box. It wasn't until around Hour 20, when I found myself organizing individual Skittles color by color, that I realized I should probably relax. Nevertheless, Seattle is ready to kill it.Pro Tip:be good to your warehouse, and it will be good to you.

Denver Regional Ahmed on "Nutty" Customers:

Denver is doing great, we opened only three months ago and we are already turning 40 orders/day. Of course, without any surprise, our customers are all regular smokers, weird nerds and sketchy people. Around 2:30AM, around a month ago, I was sleepy and running deliveries alone for the last leg of my shift. I received an order from a regular Puffer, a normal guy who orders munchies. I run the delivery, make it in 17 minutes, call him like three times but he doesn't answer the phone. So I run up the stairs and go to his door and knock. I didn't realize that actually, I was gonna hate myself for about a month. That guy opened the door, all sleepy with a weird robe untied, and of course everything was hanging out wide open, no boxers, NOTHING. The guy was obviously sleeping in his living room and didn't care that by opening the door in that outfit, I was gonna be mentally raped. So I just gave him the bag, and ran away without asking him to sign or if he was satisfied by our service, because as you can tell, it would've been really weird. Endri, don't lecture me because I didn't make him sign...you can understand why.

Pro Tip:prepare for the weird.

Phoenix Regional Adam on Manpower Management:

This War of goPuff aggression seems to be going as well as thought possible. We are closing in on nearly 200 newbie recruits with us now, and morale among them seems to be high. I have recently promoted a good man; Johnny Allegro into my command group Op-M, and he seems to be from good stock as he has performed his duties perfectly thus far. In bigger cities you should take a ton of time to go over a bunch of different driver & manager candidates before choosing any. But in a new city like mine you can't take that time until you have a solid base, and you kind of need anyone. Late orders are a non-option. We are all working day, and night fighting off the well entrenched GrubHub, Postmates, and Doordash. Their slow pace, and poor customer service seems to be the key to their undoing. We will not stop until it is fiscally irresponsible for them to remain in this fight.

Pro Tip:in a new city, hire first and vet after (but please use common sense).

Seattle Regional Matt on Why OCD is a Good Thing:

Seattle just launched last week, and getting to be one of the people to launch a new city, on a new coast no less, is really cool and exciting. There's something therapeutic and exhausting but also therapeutic about organizing 20 racks of products and setting up the environment that you know will lead to success. It takes time and extra effort, but keeping the warehouse clean and organized and making sure everything has its place ultimately makes operations function better and lowers delivery time, because you're not scrambling to find a product or open a box. It wasn't until around Hour 20, when I found myself organizing individual Skittles color by color, that I realized I should probably relax. Nevertheless, Seattle is ready to kill it.Pro Tip:be good to your warehouse, and it will be good to you.

PRODUCT OF THE WEEK

MARKETING

Events

Thursday, May 12 - Howl at the Moon - Philadelphia

Friday, May 13 - Mr. Smith's Georgetown - DC

Saturday, May 14 - Life in Color, LOTS Fest, Foxtail - Philadelphia

Design & Content

40 heads are better than one (and that is not what she said). Contact me if you have design ideas for the following:Fatheads (to be given to our top customers to put on their walls), temporary tattoos for summer, stickers.

OPERATIONS

Spoon With goPuff

After an arduous two month but what seems like two year journey from China, our customized color-changing spoons have arrived! The masses have been waiting patiently for the ultimate thrill – dipping their white spoon into cold ice cream only to see it turn blue – which ranks second in excitement only to losing one’s virginity (or maybe not, in which case...sorry about that).

Here’s the deal: you’ll be receiving your shipments of spoons by next week latest. Split them into two piles: one to giveaway with each ice cream order – EVERY. ICE. CREAM. ORDER. – and one for Puff Points, where they’ll sell like hotcakes but hopefully better than hotcakes because what even are hotcakes, who made up that saying, and who would really get hype over an ambiguously warm pastry. Oh, and don’t “dip” into the other pile if you run out of one – contact Philly and we’ll send you more.

In with the Voice, Out with the F*ck Ups

It’s no longer a request – you MUST scan & send your shipment invoices to Danielle as soon as possible after receiving them. More than that, cross check what you physically received with what the invoice says you received. Doing this saves us money and reduces the mistakes our suppliers will make in the future because they know we. mean. business.

Average Delivery Times

Philadelphia - 34.74

Boston - 37.88

DC - 30.67

Austin - 27.14

NYC - 29.52

Denver - 28.5

Phoenix - 23.83

Seattle - 29.85

THINK

We’re all like, really talented. And really smart. And have really good ideas. And good ideas only spawn more ideas. So why not share them? Reading your peers' thoughts may help you come up with the next game-changing concept, like a 30-minute delivery service. Wait…

Giving a Puff Point for every minute an order is late. – Vince [Philly]

Color code different zones or zip codes on the backend. – Fabian [Philly]

ID scanners for driver tablets. – Matt [Seattle]

SQUAD NEWS

Have an oddly specific, not-sure-who-I-should-ask-about-this question? Contact BOGDAN, who will be, among many other things, your Operations Liaison. He’ll be communicating with all the cities, making sure the cities communicate with one another, and assuring that operations everywhere is A1.

Welcome our new managers: MATT in Denver, JOHNNY in Phoenix and SANU in Philly!

DEVELOPMENT

Glitches are the name of the (least fun) game (ever). As soon as one is fixed, another pops up – it’s the nature of technology. If you notice something isn’t working right, LET RAF & YAK know immediately so they can get it fixed. We’ll update you with development developments here every week.

1. Orders Placed When We’re Closed

Status: fixed by tomorrow (Tuesday).

SUPPORT

Here were the week’s most prominent support issues. Be super, super aware of these problems moving forward and address them immediately!

Mispackaging We’ve successfully avoided the Nerds Rope/Slim Jim snafu, but watch quantities. I also don’t know what one person would need with four bottles of syrup and six Captain Crunches (though I can imagine), but what the customer wants, the customer SHOULD GET.

Delivery Consistency When a driver delivers a customer’s order straight to their door the first three times and then pitches a fit and doesn’t want to come upstairs the fourth time, we look like scrubs. Note certain apartments or campuses in which drivers should always/should never deliver straight to the door or to the lobby. Make a list, print it, and post it in your driver lounge. Contact me if you want a list of addresses customers have contacted us about with this issue in the past.

Driver Etiquette Some things should be obvious – don’t ring a doorbell or obnoxiously knock at 2AM without calling a customer first, or don’t drive away without knocking if you’re delivering an order with a charger (the customer’s phone is probably dead). "Should be" obvious, but unfortunately, aren’t always. At your next driver meeting, go over Etiquette 101 with your drivers PLEASE. A driver handbook will be coming later this week for you to all share with existing/new drivers. Contact me if there’s any info you want to make sure is in there.

Fraud Orders Protocol is as follows: check every hoverboard order, order over $100, and call Mr. Chargeback himself, Endri, regarding orders over $250.

SPOTLIGHT: DISEL

What's your goPuff story?Let's admit it, goPuff has never had enough Albanians. goPuff was desperately looking for more (like always), but they also wanted the best of the best. With proof of hard work and commitment to achieve success no matter what, they let me be part of the team.

What's your favorite part about working for goPuff, besides #TeamAlbania?Knowing that we are currently the only other company in the market that can compete with Amazon and destroy their Prime service. Let's admit it, they will never be as cool as goPuff.

If you weren't working for goPuff, what would you be doing?Either bartending in Hawaii or starting my investment firm (that's if goPuff didn't exist). Otherwise I would be applying to work for goPuff.

What's your greatest extravagance?College tuition, if that counts.

Oh, it counts. If you were to die and choose what to come back as, what/who would it be?Definitely Eminem, love the guy. Or probably Puff, chicks love Puff...

What is one of your favorite goPuff moments or memories?First day we opened in Austin. Me, Yakir and Endri had been out all day handing out cards and we got out first order that same day. I was driving so fast I almost hit a police car. The guy told all his friends; next day we had five orders.

That's awesome! Why is Austin to great?People are way more friendly and all the cool companies including Google and Facebook are moving here. It's just a matter of time before goPuff does...By the way, Matthew McConaughey lives half a mile from me, and I see him at Whole Foods all the time.

So you like, basically hit up the hot bar with Matthew McConaughey on the regular?Yeah, we kill it on Tuesday nights. He taught me how to speak English with a Texas accent, I taught him everything he knows about getting chicks.

How do you get chicks?99% word of mouth.

Uh huh. What's your goPuff goal?Be the CFO of goPuff by the time we go public on the stock market.

What about your motto?I have two: 1. Don't be like Endri. 2. Anything is achievable as long as you are willing to work hard and smart.

Why don't be like Endri?It was a joke. I love the guy.

Should I still post this in here even though Endri is mentioned in every Puff Post? The attention might be getting to his head...Yeah, post it. It's better this way...at least he knows he will get mentioned, instead of beng sad for never being interviewed.

What advice would you give to new Regional and Operations managers?Great and friendly customer service will make us succeed over other delivery companies.

What's something we don't know about you?I used to represent Albania in math competitions in high school. I have three gold medals in the Albanian championship and a bronze one in the European championship. I doubt anybody knows this.

Which three apps do you use the most?Facebook, Google Finance, and just recently Snapchat.

You can ask yourself one question to be asked in this interview. What is it?Do you think Taylor has a thing for you?